


Bath Time

by standbygo



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, BAMF John Watson, Bathing/Washing, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, Funny, M/M, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:35:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22463437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/standbygo/pseuds/standbygo
Summary: A five plus one fic about Sherlock and John taking - or not taking - a bath.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 149
Kudos: 479





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John's first night at 221B, after moving in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting this on January 29, to celebrate the day Sherlock and John met!

John slid the dresser drawer shut and sat down on the bed with a sigh. He didn’t have many possessions since he’d returned from Afghanistan, so it hadn’t taken long to move into 221B Baker Street. One box and one suitcase, with his gun and bullets carefully hidden in the bottom. He hadn’t allowed the cabbie to carry it for him. He had some books and papers stored at Harry’s, but he didn’t feel an urgent need to get them yet. If he was honest with himself, the cost of getting them – talking to Harry – was a bit high right now.

That said he was grateful there wasn’t more. His old bedsit was a third floor walk-up, and at 221B it was a flight up to the sitting room and another to John’s new room. If there had been more stuff, the stairs would have killed him. His leg wasn’t completely healed, and he wasn’t twenty any more. Not that his new flatmate had helped at all; Sherlock had been sat at the kitchen table the whole time, tinkering with some sort of chemistry experiment.

Now all was done and put away, and a soak in the bath would be perfect.

John stood and stripped off his clothes, noting that they were a bit dusty. His room was clean, thank you Mrs. Hudson, but it was inevitable to get a bit of dust raised when moving. All the more reason for a wash.

He wrapped his old, threadbare, ugly, but beloved housecoat around him, grabbed a towel, and headed downstairs. He realized belatedly that in his hasty look at the flat yesterday, then rushing off on the cabbie case, he had never looked at the bathroom. Given the décor of the rest of the flat, John imagined a claw foot tub, large and deep and wide. Upon entering the bathroom, however, he saw instead a perfectly ordinary bath, in a shade of green that recalled the 1970s. He shrugged, put the plug in, and started the water.

He looked through to the kitchen, and saw Sherlock still at the table, focused entirely on the microscope. “I’m having a bath, Sherlock,” John called. “Do you need the loo before I get in?”

Sherlock paused, long enough for John to wonder if he hadn’t heard, then said distantly, “No.”

“Right.”

John returned to the bathroom, and was momentarily distracted by his discovery of the odd architecture of his new flat – namely that there was a second door to the loo which seemed to lead to Sherlock’s room. John shrugged internally. The frosted glass would protect privacy, to a degree. In Afghanistan showers (when they could be had) were pretty public, so a frosted door didn’t bother him much.

He turned back to the bath, pulling off his bathrobe. And froze. 

Hastily yanking his bathrobe over his body again, he stumbled into the hallway. “Green!”

“Mmm?” Sherlock said.

“Green! The water is – green! Something wrong with the pipes, I – green!”

Sherlock finally looked up from his microscope, a deep line forming between his brows. “What?”

John took a breath, tried to remember how full sentences worked. “The water. In the bath. Is green.”

“You’re having a bath?” 

“Well, NOT NOW!”

“What do you mean, the water is-” 

Suddenly the confused look cleared from Sherlock’s face, and was replaced with something that looked like curiosity and recognition blended together. Sherlock stood and came to the bathroom, saying, “That’s an unexpected result.”

“What?” Horror and shock were sinking away, and John was beginning to think that there was more to this situation than he had thought. “What do you mean, ‘unexpected result’?”

Sherlock was peering at the tub, then pointed at the water, still running from the tap. “It’s not the pipes, see, the water coming out is clear.” He turned off the tap. “It must be a chemical reaction to the surface of the tub. Fascinating, that is unexpected.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I had been doing an experiment with cyanobacteria and how it reacted to other chemicals, but I never expected it would react like this to an oxygen/hydrogen/ethyl alcohol combination.”

Righteous fury rose up in John’s chest and began to pour into his head and mouth. “Are you telling me,” he said in a calm, flat voice that had frightened nurses and corporals, “that you conducted chemical experiments in the bath and didn’t clean it after?”

“Um,” said Sherlock, faltering for the first time. 

“Clean. It. Up,” John explained.

Sherlock left the room silently. By the time he had returned with cleaning supplies, the water had begun to coagulate, as though someone had added cottage cheese. John stood in the corner of the room, in parade rest, arms crossed, not taking his eyes off Sherlock. 

First Sherlock put on black rubber gloves that went all the way up his arms; John hadn’t seen those outside of an autopsy room. Then he took a vial from his pocket and filled it with the substance from the tub, capping it carefully and putting it in a biohazard baggie, avoiding John’s glare. He set the baggie aside, sighed, and began to clean the tub. 

Twenty minutes later, the tub was sparkling clean, and Sherlock’s face was red and slightly sweaty. Sherlock sat back on his heels.

“There. And, um, apologies.”

John nodded sharply. “Thank you.” He pulled his bathrobe a little closer around him, turned, and walked out of the bathroom. 

“Aren’t you going to have a bath?” Sherlock called, confusion back in his voice.

“Think I’m off baths for a bit,” John said.

He managed to make it up to his bedroom before bursting into laughter.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John tries to have a nice bath after a difficult case.

John sat back in the scented water and sighed. This was perfect: the water was beautifully hot, and the bath salts he had treated himself to were a nice blend of lemon and bergamot. He imagined himself as a teabag, dissolving into the water.

It had been a hell of a case. Enough intrigue to keep Sherlock intrigued, lots of running around for John, and in the end Lestrade’s officers had hauled off the ringleaders of a money forging organization. Nasty bunch; John was glad to see the end of them. Then he and Sherlock had gone to a Chinese restaurant that was empty but for them, and John had eaten Singapore Noodle, which was so good he would happily eat just that, three meals a day, for the rest of his life.

And now a bath; the perfect reward for a job well done.

He could hear Sherlock rattling around the flat. This case had only been two days, so he wasn’t likely to fall right asleep. Once they had a case that had lasted five days, and Sherlock made it into the sitting room, flopped face first on the sofa, and was out like a light in seconds. John had dragged a blanket over him and made it upstairs to his own bed before he himself collapsed.

However, two days was still two days. He wondered if Sherlock would finish the experiment he had started before this whole mess, or if he would just watch some telly and then go to bed.

As if in answer, John heard a crash and tinkle of a drinking glass or beaker breaking. John waited for Sherlock’s “Damn it!” which usually came after such a sound, but - nothing. John wondered if Sherlock had been holding something and fallen asleep, dropping it. Unusual but not surprising, it had happened before.

“Sherlock?” he called. “All right?”

No reply, but he could hear Sherlock still moving around. A bit erratically, maybe he was cleaning up and hadn’t heard John. John shrugged and slipped deeper into the water.

Then he heard it. Just outside the bathroom door, he heard a sound that he hadn’t heard in a long time. Not the sound of gunfire far off, often heard in Afghanistan; not the chaos of a crowded A&E on a Saturday night. This was something he heard more in the pub drinking days of his twenties, when young people were restless and aching for a drink and a fight.

John heard an impact on flesh, a grunt, air rushing out. The sound of a gut punch. The grunt was Sherlock’s.

“John!” Sherlock called, and his voice was muffled and strained.

Adrenaline slammed into John’s muscles. He rose from the bath in a wave and yanked the door open.

Sherlock was in the corridor between the bathroom and the kitchen. Behind him was a masked man dressed all in black. He was holding an honest to God pair of nunchuks, one baton in each hand, with the chain across Sherlock’s throat. Sherlock had managed to get his hands under the chain, but his face was red and straining. The masked man was pulling him backwards, trying to get him off his feet.

John put his hands together and clubbed at the man’s ear. It was a direct hit, and the man fumbled his grip. It gave Sherlock enough space to turn in the man’s arms and get his shoulder into his chest, then push him backwards into the wall. The nunchuks fell away from Sherlock’s neck, but the man didn’t let go of them. He stepped back, spinning the weapon in a deadly whirl. Sherlock twisted free but his shoulder fell into the path of the weapon, and John heard the _thunk_ of the blow at the same time as Sherlock grunted in pain.

“Oh no you didn’t,” John snarled. Without hesitation or thought, he reached through the nunchuk’s radius, earning a hard whack on his wrist. Ignoring the sharp pain, he grabbed the intruder’s forearm and jerked back and then down. With his other hand he twisted the nunchuk free. He threw it blindly behind him, and a _sploosh_ told him where it had landed.

The man stepped back, his arms rising in loose fists in front of him. John felt his face ratchet up into a smile as he did the same, and he could see Sherlock mirroring his pose beside him.

“All right?” John said.

“Never better,” Sherlock replied.

“Excellent. Vatican cameos.”

Sherlock went down. John’s right leg, the strong one, whipped forward in a side kick directly into the man’s solar plexus. He could feel the man’s breath empty his lungs, then Sherlock kicked at the back of the man’s knees from below, and he came down with a crash.

In a blink, John had flipped the intruder and was kneeling on his back. He forced the man to scratch his back the hard way, bending his arms back and up behind him.

“Get the handcuffs from the fridge, Sherlock.”

Sherlock was back with them in a moment, along with his mobile. He handed the cuffs to John, and John fixed the chilly metal around the masked man’s wrists. The man was still struggling, and John shifted his weight to pin him down.

“Lestrade, get some of your idiots over to Baker Street immediately,” Sherlock snapped into his mobile. “They let one of the forgers get away… yes, he’s here… yes, John has it under control. Get this moron out of our house.”

He was silent, and John thought he was listening to Lestrade’s reply. Then Sherlock snorted.

John looked up. Sherlock was giggling in his deep throaty way, leaning against the wall.

“What? Oh.”

John looked down at himself – soaking wet and fully naked, on top of a wriggling, cuffed ninja.

He looked back at Sherlock and grinned. “Would you get me a towel?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John head back to the inn after the whole mess at Baskerville.

“Not yet. Not yet.”

John kept a firm grip on Sherlock’s shoulder as they made their way back towards the inn. “We’re almost there, Sherlock.”

“Not you. Not yet. I mean, not you. Not not you. Not him.”

“All right.”

“I saw him. He was wearing the mask.”

“Who, Frankland?”

“No. Not him. _Him_.”

John shook his head. “You got another hefty dose of the Baskerville gases in Dewer’s Hollow, I think, plus a shot of adrenaline when the land mine went off. So you’re back under the influence of the stuff. Just hold tight and we’ll be back in the room soon.”

Sherlock craned his head around to look at John. “So did you. You were there too. Why aren’t you?”

John shrugged. “Once I realized it was the gas, I remembered to breathe differently. Shallow. They teach you that in boot camp, in case of a gas attack.”

“Steady breath. Steady arm. Shot the dog, no one else could. Even Scotland Yard’s finest couldn’t hit it. You did.”

“Yeah. Well.”

“You’ve seen land mines before too.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah, not my first. Nor my second, or even fifth, I’m afraid.”

“Not horror. Not fear. I saw you. Just – sad.”

John shifted his hold on Sherlock as he gritted his teeth. “Not far now,” he said in a tone he prayed Sherlock would interpret correctly.

It appeared that he did, and he was silent until they had gotten into the inn and into their room. John released Sherlock, expecting that he would collapse directly into bed, but instead Sherlock made for the bathroom.

“What are you doing?”

“Need to get it off me.”

“Get what off you?”

“The smell. Mud. The gas. Fear. Get it off, wash it down.”

The door swung shut. John fell back on the bed, and for just a moment, allowed the aftershocks of fear to flow freely through him. The tremours shook the bed, making it squeak. Then he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and forced himself to stop.

He heard the splash of Sherlock getting in the tub. It wasn’t going to be a satisfying soak for him, John thought; he had noticed that the bath was shorter than the one at Baker Street, and there was no way Sherlock’s long body would fit in it. He got up and gave into his curiosity, peering through the crack of the slightly open door.

Sherlock was in the bath, folded up as if he was on his chair at home, his arms wrapped around his legs, his head fallen forward over his knees. He was still fully dressed.

John thought for a moment about going into the room and helping Sherlock, then he heard him whispering.

“Steady hand, steady arm. No one else could do it. Only one in the world. Have to keep him away. It’s in the air, not the sugar. In the air, can’t see it. Can’t see it coming but I can. It’s coming. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Steady. Steady.”

John stepped back away from the door, shaking his head at the nonsense. It would work itself out of his system eventually.

He changed into his pyjamas and crawled into bed, with the susurrus of Sherlock’s whispers leaking from the bathroom door.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John cares for Sherlock after he is shot.

“I fancy a bath.”

John looked up from his book. The cool and damp of a London early December had arrived, and John was glad for the circle of warmth the fire created. 

Sherlock looked thin and a bit tired, but not as ghastly pale and wraith thin as he had been even last month. John kept making him eat: not just regular food, which was cause enough for complaint, but iron rich foods. Sherlock ate like it was poison, but he ate, and John could see the evidence of it now. 

John considered. “Your wound is healing nicely,” he said. “We’d better tape some plastic wrap over the dressing. And you shouldn’t have any bath salts or anything like that. Just in case.”

Sherlock grumbled something that sounded rather like, “What’s the point then,” but rose nonetheless. He moved with his habitual grace, but slowly and with a kind of care that reminded John that he was not yet completely free of pain. 

“I’ll help you with the plastic,” he said, and got up as well. 

He went into the kitchen to get the necessary supplies. When he arrived in the bathroom, Sherlock had already started the bath, filling the room with steam, and stripped off his shirt. John had a flashback to when Sherlock had first been released – released, not escaped – and his chest had been painted with stripes of iodine, red streaks from the bandages and heart monitors irritating his nearly translucent skin, and mottled green and yellow bruises around the wound. All signs of healing, but the sight of it had made John furious all over again. He had worked hard to keep it at bay, but he was sure Sherlock had noticed. How could he not? He was Sherlock, he saw everything.

Sherlock sat on the toilet seat and raised his arms out of John’s way. John knelt at his feet and began to carefully tape a square of clingfilm over the dressing. 

“We’ll change the dressing after,” he said. 

“All right,” Sherlock said. 

A few moments passed in silence as John worked. John assumed the quiet was due to Sherlock’s tiredness, so he was surprised when Sherlock spoke again.

“My mother called today.”

“That’s nice,” John said automatically.

“She’s invited us to Christmas. To the house in Sussex.”

John looked up at Sherlock, but Sherlock was staring at the wall opposite. John returned to his work and thought for a moment. 

“Do you want me to come with you?” he said finally.

“Of course I do,” Sherlock said immediately. “Don’t be foolish.”

“Would that be all right with your mother?”

“She said so.”

John smiled at Sherlock’s chest. “That’s very kind of her. Thank you.”

“Mycroft will be there too, unfortunately.”

“Ah well. We must make sacrifices.”

John heard Sherlock smile above him, and he focused again on his work. 

“There, I think-”

“I think you should invite Mary as well,” Sherlock said.

John stared up at Sherlock. His jaw tightened involuntarily, and he took a moment to breathe, breathe, breathe. “Why?” he managed at last.

“So you can talk.”

John’s head was spinning with disbelief. He stood, and Sherlock’s gaze followed him up.

“There’s a baby, John.”

“I know there’s a baby,” John snapped. 

“You need to forgive her.”

John’s head shook back and forth, slowly, disbelievingly. “I – Sherlock – how can you – I can’t-”

“You forgave me.”

John’s teeth were grinding together, his hands tightening into fists. “This is different,” he ground out.

“Is it?” Sherlock said softly. 

John turned and walked out of the bathroom. He pretended he didn’t hear Sherlock sigh, didn’t hear the rustle of his clothes falling to the floor, didn’t hear the quiet splash of Sherlock getting into the bath.

He went to the sitting room and sat in his chair. Stared at the fire.

After a long time, he pulled his phone from his pocket and stared at it. His finger hovered over the phone icon, then over the chat icon. He held it there for a long time. 

Sherlock was getting out of the bath when John quickly typed out a message and pressed Send before he could talk himself out of it again. Then he stood and walked back to the bathroom, saying, “Let’s change that dressing.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock gives Rosie a bath, and John finally realizes something.

“Ahbababababa!”

“I understand your concerns, but the bath is a necessity, Watson.”

"Nnnnnnn.”

“After all your experiments with mud today, you really don’t have much room to argue.”

“Ba.”

“Thank you. In you get.”

John sat back in his chair and grinned as he took a sip of whisky. He loved listening to Sherlock and Rosie together; how he spoke with her as if they were having a university level discussion, despite the fact that she only had a couple of words in her vocabulary.

It had been a rough day for John. The surgery had been crowded and loud, with cases of flu, and colds misinterpreted as the flu. John had to explain over and over that the flu jab wouldn’t work if one already _had_ the flu, and that a running nose and a cough did not necessary indicate flu. In Sherlock’s lexicon, the whole day had been cases no higher than a two.

He had picked up Rosie from nursery but they had gotten caught in the rain before John could get into the Tube station. Rosie had complained loudly all the way home about being wet, and he got a few glares from some people, pitying looks from others. He hated both.

So they were both in a fine, grumpy mood when they returned to Baker Street. Sherlock had taken one look at them and whisked Rosie out of John’s hands and waved him towards the shower. By the time he got out, Rosie was happily eating her dinner in her high chair, and there were steaming containers of John’s favourite Chinese takeaway on the table.

He looked around him, the last of the annoyance of the day draining out of him and being replaced with a warm glow of happiness. He hadn’t been sure about moving back to Baker Street after Mary’s death. He hadn’t been sure about how Sherlock would deal with a baby about, with her noise and fretful moods.

But Sherlock had thrown himself into life with a child in the house. The sitting room was messy, but now with toys and stuffys and picture books instead of weaponry and tobacco and newspapers piled knee high. The fridge still contained experiments, but only in well labelled, opaque containers on the highest shelf.

And Sherlock seemed to genuinely enjoy spending time with Rosie.

“Ba!” John heard, and then a loud splash.

“Ah, I see you are continuing your experiments with the physics of displacement.”

“Baba!”

“Have I mentioned that displacement is also referred to as Euclidean motion?”

“Nnnnn.” Another splash.

“Ah, you see the effects of force upon displacement! Clever girl, Watson.”

Splash splash splash, and a chortle of joy.

“Excellent. You see how when greater force is implemented, the greater the displacement? This is an example of one of the key rules of science: every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”

John smiled to himself. He shouldn’t really have been so surprised at Sherlock’s way with Rosie. He remembered how little Archie, the ring bearer at the wedding, who John had seen as a surly child who was only interested in his video games, had taken to Sherlock after only a single visit.

He shouldn’t be surprised at all. After all, Sherlock had also taken a surly soldier, not interested in anything, and transformed him.

“Had enough then? Right, out you come. Let’s get you dried off and ready for bed, Watson. Yes, I need drying off too, thanks to your experiments with displacement – would you assist me? Thank you.”

Rosie was quieter now, and only a few minutes later Sherlock emerged with Rosie in his arms. Rosie was dressed in a little plush dressing gown, and was clinging to a bee stuffy that was her favourite bedtime toy. Her head rested on Sherlock’s shoulder, her eyes already drooping.

“Say goodnight to daddy, Watson,” Sherlock said. His voice was low, and John imagined that Rosie could feel the vibration of it through her cheek.

Rosie raised her head half-heartedly and waved at John. “Ni ni, dada.”

John stood and kissed Rosie’s cheek. “She’s half asleep already.”

When he straightened again, Sherlock’s eyes were closed, but opened immediately. “I used a new body wash with lavender oils. It seems to have a soporific effect, doesn’t it, Watson?”

“Want me to put her down?”

“Not to worry, John. You relax. I suspect she’ll fall asleep shortly.”

Sherlock turned and walked away with Rosie, her head already back on his shoulder.

John stood in the middle of the sitting room, watching them go. The exhaustion of the day had abruptly lifted from him and his mind was spinning.

Rosie’s head on Sherlock’s shoulder. Sherlock’s closed eyes.

He heard the squeak of the floorboards in his and Rosie’s room upstairs. The baby monitor was on, and Sherlock was murmuring to her.

“There you are, Watson, some warm pyjamas for you. You like these, with the lions on them, don’t you? _Panthera leo_ is the Latin, though these lions look nicer than a real one. Now, a little snack, I think, yes? I always sleep very well after eating something. After a case is solved, of course.”

There was a rocking chair in John’s room that Mrs. Hudson had contributed when John had moved back in, and John heard Sherlock settling into it now.

“You’ve had a busy day, haven’t you, Watson? Not to worry, your daddy and I will keep watch for you.”

And Sherlock began to sing, soft and deep.

_Chut! Plus de bruit, c’est la ronde de nuit_

_En diligence, faisons silence,_

_Chut! Plus de bruit, c’est la ronde de nuit_

_Marchons sans bruit, c’est la ronde de nuit_

John sat down heavily in his chair. How could he not have seen this? Images flashed through his mind: an abandoned cane, the lucky cat, a plate of food for John during a case, mobile phones, champagne toasts, a bottle of Claire du Lune, the very presence of his chair.

He _had_ seen this. He just hadn’t understood.

“John?”

John came back to himself; Sherlock was back in the sitting room, looking at him curiously. “All right?”

“Yeah, I-” John found himself transfixed by the sight of droplets of water darkening Sherlock’s dressing gown.

“She fell asleep before she even finished the bottle,” Sherlock said, sitting in his chair. “Any tea left?”

“You care about her,” John blurted. “You love her.”

Sherlock blinked at him. “John?”

“Rosie. You love her. You let us move in, and changed everything for us, let us disrupt your life-”

“Disrupt? Nonsense, John.”

“It is, though. It _is_ a disruption.” John wasn’t sure why he was insisting on this, it wasn’t the point he was trying to make.

“You are worth the disruption, John,” Sherlock said quietly.

John stared at Sherlock while everything fell into place in his mind. “I thought you didn’t feel things like that,” he said.

He could see Sherlock’s pulse racing in his carotid artery, see the flush on his cheeks. “I do,” he said in a near whisper.

“You told me, but I wasn’t listening,” John said. A terrible sadness welled up in him, and the sadness pulled him to his knees. “I didn’t listen, and you do.”

He closed his eyes and tilted his head up. He was shaking.

A single finger, light as frost, traced the track of a tear along the edge of his face. Then along the fringes of his hair.

“Are you listening now?” Sherlock said.

“Yes,” John whispered.

“I do,” Sherlock said. There was a rustle as Sherlock knelt in front of him, and John felt the press of Sherlock’s hands cupping his face.

He opened his eyes. Sherlock’s face was more open and vulnerable than John had ever seen before.

“I do. Feel things,” Sherlock said again. “You and Rosie. But, um… in different ways.”

“Yes,” John said. He lifted his hands and put them on Sherlock’s face, mirroring him. “Good.”

They stayed still for a moment, hardly breathing, hardly believing what was happening after all these years. John realized that he needed to say more, explain those years.

“Every action,” he said, tilting his forehead against Sherlock’s, “has an equal and opposite reaction. Yeah?”

Sherlock’s eyes opened again, lined with confusion.

“The basic rule of physics. I know it too. And… I think I believed in it a bit too much. It made me afraid. Afraid to take action, for fear of the reaction. The opposite reaction.”

“Oh.” Sherlock’s face cleared. “I was, as well. But I believe that occasionally, within the constructs of physics, action can spur a… similar action.”

“Shall we test that hypothesis?” John said, his whole face breaking open with a smile, his heart breaking open.

He let his thumb trace Sherlock’s cheekbone, and watched his eyes close. He felt the delicate stroke of Sherlock’s exploring fingertips across his brow, and he smiled.

Sherlock ran his fingers through John’s hair, and John tilted his head into Sherlock’s hand. He pushed his hand through Sherlock’s curls, and Sherlock sighed with the barest hint of a whine.

They stopped and opened their eyes at the same time, as if by agreement.

“One more test?” Sherlock said.

John nodded, and leaned forward, and met with Sherlock’s willing mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Sherlock sings is a traditional French lullaby. The translation is more or less this:
> 
> Hush! No more noise,  
> It's the night watch.  
> Quickly, let's be quiet,  
> Let's walk noiselessly,  
> It's the night watch.
> 
> Here's a recording of the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cVj0tMxJ20


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Sherlock finally get to have a bath together. Sort of.

“Well, that was… a case.”

“It certainly was. Disappointed, John?”

John looked over at Sherlock, who was driving their hired car. He was momentarily hypnotized by the sight of Sherlock’s long fingers on the steering wheel, then shivered. “No. Are you?”

Sherlock sighed. “A little. Poisonings are usually fascinating, but the whole point of using poison is to give yourself distance from the murder. Sticking around to gloat is terribly dull.”

“Still. Must be a new record. Not counting travel, I think you solved this in about forty-five minutes.”

“Forty-two minutes and fifteen seconds.” Sherlock grinned, but the grin faltered when he saw John shiver again. “Still cold?”

John punched the car’s heater again, which they had discovered didn’t work when they were too far away from the rental place to turn back and complain, then put his hands back under his arms. “A bit.”

“More than a bit. Sorry you ended up in the pond.”

“My consolation is that the murderer is equally cold, wet and miserable, but has jail to look forward to. Are we going home?”

Sherlock shook his head. “It’s too late, and you can’t take the train in your state. I found us a room.”

“Lovely.”

“It was surprisingly difficult. I had to call two or three inns, and only found the one room.”

John frowned. “That’s odd. You wouldn’t think it would be busy in Brighton Beach in February. Unless…” His shoulders slumped. “It’s Valentine’s Day. Oh my God. I forgot. I’m so sorr-”

He looked over and Sherlock again, and saw the barely disguised smirk. “No,” he said, bemused astonishment taking the edge off the word.

“What?” Sherlock said, all innocence.

“You remembered. You rarely know what month it is, even when it’s snowing out, and you remembered Valentine’s Day.”

Sherlock smiled, and John basked in this smile, the one that was for no one but him. “I will admit that I was reminded.”

“By whom?”

“Mrs. Hudson told me rather sternly I should buy you flowers and chocolates and… clothes.”

“Clothes?”

“Please don’t make me explain. I’m still struggling to delete the conversation.”

“Ah. But did you? Buy chocolates and flowers and that?”

“No…?”

“Good. They cost twice as much at Valentine’s anyway, and I don’t care for them.”

“Thank God,” Sherlock sighed as they pulled into the carpark of an inn.

“Who else?” John said as he got their bags from the boot.

“Mmm?”

“Who else reminded you? I know there were others.”

“Lestrade,” Sherlock grumbled. “And Phillip. And Molly.”

_Ahhh._

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “And presumably The Woman.”

John waited for the squirm of jealousy that usually accompanied the sound of a text from Irene Adler, but it didn’t come. He followed Sherlock into the lobby, feeling a roll of warmth instead. The jealousy was gone, because he knew Sherlock was his now. Sherlock was his, and he was Sherlock’s, and there was no fear of interference from The Woman: John now understood her role in Sherlock’s life: as someone he admired but not someone he wanted or loved.

That role was John’s now.

Sherlock looked at John, tense, worried and clearly anticipating the jealousy, but instead John squeezed his hand. “It’s all right. Go and check us in.”

Sherlock smiled shyly at him, a look John would never had imagined a year ago, and turned to the front desk. A few moments later, he and Sherlock were walking down the hall.

“We’re in luck,” Sherlock said. “Apparently there’s not just an ensuite, there’s a good sized tub as well. You can have a bath, warm up.”

“That sounds marvellous,” John said with feeling. His clothes had mostly dried now, but his shirt was still sticking wetly to his back. The worst part of a dunking, John knew from far too much experience, was the clammy stage. A thought occurred to him. “You didn’t make up this case just to get us to Brighton Beach, did you?”

“Of course not! This is just a fortunate coincidence.”

John couldn’t help grinning at Sherlock’s concept of a murder as a ‘fortunate coincidence’. “So if you knew about Valentine’s, what were we going to do if the case hadn’t happened?”

“Dinner at Angelo’s,” Sherlock admitted. “But this is better, isn’t it?”

“A case and a night in Brighton? Of course it is,” John said, warming with affection. “But let’s do Angelo’s too, when we get home. Can’t let him feel left out.”

“Ah, here it is,” Sherlock said, stopping at a door. “I’ve already changed the reservation with Angelo to tomorrow night. He was a bit disappointed when I called, but-”

The door swung open, and they both stood in the doorway for a moment in complete shock.

“Oh my God,” John whispered.

The room was wallpapered floor to ceiling with a deep red flocked pattern, and a deep red shag rug covered the floor. Red velveteen curtains blocked out the view from the window. Pendant lamps hung in every corner. But the bed was the focus of the room, huge and round, with a similarly huge and round mirror suspended above it.

“John?”

“Oh my God.”

“John, is that… a stripper pole in the corner?”

“Oh my _God_.”

Sherlock closed his jaw with a snap, and turned back to the hallway. John came back to himself and grabbed his arm.

“I’m getting another room, John.”

“You said there weren’t any others, they were all sold out.”

“I can see why _this_ one wasn’t sold.”

“Oh my God.” John pulled a reluctant Sherlock into the room, a disbelieving laugh finally making its way out of his mouth. “We can’t pass this up. This is amazing.”

“Amazingly ridiculous.”

“That’s what I meant.” John sat carefully on the edge of the bed; he was slightly worried it would start to spin. _Shagadelic_.

Sherlock was still hesitating, staying as far from the bed as he could, almost clinging to the textured walls. “I’m not sure I can sleep in here, John. It’s too _loud_.”

John bounced a little on the bed. “It’s still a bed, and a nice mattress at that. And look, it’s huge. It won’t be like that little cot you ended up with when we had that case in Edinburgh, remember?”

“Ye-esss,” Sherlock said. He sat on the edge of the bed next to John. He looked less concerned that it would spin, and more that it would explode.

“It’s this or sleeping in the car.”

Sherlock looked like he was considering it as a more favourable option, but John was not going to pass up the opportunity to sleep in the tackiest hotel room in England. “You said there was an ensuite? With a bath?”

“Dear God. I wonder what-”

John spied a door, or rather a door-like opening with a red beaded curtain. He grabbed Sherlock’s hand and towed him toward it.

“Oh my GOD.”

The bathroom was, if anything, worse. The room was decorated with tiny mosaic tiles in a bright aquamarine; this would have been acceptable if only a small part of the room was like that, but the walls, ceiling and floor were all covered with them. Mirrors framed with seashells hung over bright blue glass sink basins. On the far end of the room, up a couple of mosaicked steps, was an enormous hot tub.

Sherlock’s eyes were wide, like a spooked horse. “I had to urinate until the moment I walked in here. Now I fear the urge will never hit me again.”

“I want that bath,” John ground out. He strode to the far end of the room and started the water pouring into the tub.

“I shall go lie down and close my eyes and pretend this room does not exist,” Sherlock said. He turned back into the room, but John caught him.

“Sherlock. My love. You see but do not observe,” John said.

“I can’t see anything but tile,” Sherlock whined.

“Look again, genius. Look at the size of that bath. That is a bathtub that you can _fit_ in, you lanky git.”

It took forever to fill the tub, which was just enough time for John to convince Sherlock to take his coat and clothes off, and for Sherlock to adjust to the room. Finally John shut off the taps, and Sherlock stood next to the tub, eyeing it warily.

“While I appreciate that you enjoy a soak, John,” he said, “baths to me have always been a means to an end, that is, to clean myself. I’ve never understood the appeal of just… sitting there.”

“That’s because you’ve got legs up to your neck, and you can’t stretch out properly. Baths aren’t much fun if half of your body is not actually in the water. Get in and see.”

Sherlock twisted his lip in doubt, but then stepped into the bath. He lowered himself down into the water, his forehead wrinkled in concentration at first, then clearing.

“Ohhhhh,” he said. He relaxed all at once and immersed himself. “That… that is lovely, John.”

“Toldja.”

“And you’ve achieved very near my ideal water temperature of 37 degrees. It’s a little hotter than that, but I suppose time will take care of that.”

Sherlock closed his eyes in pleasure, and the sight was enough to make John’s heart swell. Then he remembered that he was not yet in the bath, and that he was the one who had taken a dunking in the pond, and that there was a tub full of naked consulting detective right in front of him.

He climbed in, discovering that the tub was also wide enough for them to lie side by side. He positioned himself and lay down – and discovered the flaw in his plan.

In a normal bathtub, John could lie almost completely flat, his feet against one end and his head propped up on the edge – much like what Sherlock was doing right now. And while this bath was long enough for Sherlock to do so, the far end extended well beyond John’s feet. And with a slippery surface with no friction…

“Oop,” he said, as he nearly went completely under the water.

“John?” Sherlock said, cracking an eye open.

“Just a mo’,” John muttered, as he tried to readjust himself.

A couple more near immersions later, and John had improvised a solution of sorts, bracing himself against the side of the tub, and raising himself into more of a sitting position. Once he had more or less settled, he looked over at Sherlock, a tad jealous that he could stretch out. But Sherlock was looking at him with a little concern, and the heat of the water was making his hair curl a bit more than usual, and he looked so beautiful and relaxed, that John’s momentary grump passed away. 

“All right?” Sherlock said.

“Yeah,” John said, leaning into Sherlock’s shoulder. “Happy.”

“Good. I can see the appeal now, John. Do you think Mrs. Hudson would be amenable to installing one at Baker Street?”

“I don’t think the foundation could take it. Think of the weight of all this water. We’ll land in her sitting room.”

Sherlock chuckled, that deep, throaty sound that John loved. Then he raised his head to look at the wall. “What’s the switch for, do you suppose?”

“Which?”

Sherlock pointed at a little switch in the corner of the tiled wall. “Do you think it will electrocute us?”

“Of course not, you morbid thing. It’s probably for the jets.”

“Aeroplanes?” Sherlock said with genuine confusion.

“No, git, water jets. Swirls the water about.”

“Really?” Sherlock reached his long arm and flipped the switch.

“- Sherlock!”

There was a jet directly behind John’s back. It started with a powerful burst of water, and John lost his tenuous hold on the bath. He found himself propelled away from Sherlock to the other end of the tub.

“Damn it-”

There was another jet at John’s feet, and it pushed him back where he came. John scrabbled helplessly at the tiles of the hot tub while he was thrown back and forth like a tennis ball in the water.

“Fuck this.”

John was able to grab the side of the tub and yank himself free of the powerful streams of water. Much more awkwardly than he would have liked, he hauled himself out of the water and sat on the side of the tub, panting with indignation. He looked back at Sherlock.

Sherlock was laughing. His nose wrinkling, his chins folding up, his eyes streaming, he was laughing. Mouth wide open, he laughed straight from his belly – not the controlled chuckle or bemused snort he sometimes used – but full out laughing.

John knew instinctively and absolutely that Sherlock wasn’t mocking him, wasn’t laughing at his loss of dignity, but at the whole situation: the ugly room, the silliness of the moment, the case, the whole thing.

There was joy there, and love.

John snorted, and fell into his own helpless giggle. As John joined in, Sherlock laughed even harder, and he reached out for John’s hand.

“Oh God, I – hahaha – are you all – haha – all right? Are you-”

In reply, John pulled at Sherlock’s hand, pulled him close, and kissed his laughing mouth. They tilted their heads together and giggled into each other’s breath.

“Come on,” John said, still laughing, and pulled again. “Come on.”

Sherlock rose out of the water, still laughing. They tripped their way back into the bedroom and collapsed, dripping, onto the fantastically tacky bed with the mirror overhead.

John rolled himself on top of Sherlock, and felt Sherlock’s legs wrap around his waist. He pressed his lips against Sherlock’s throat, sucking and nibbling, just to feel the vibrations of his laughter.

Laughter gave way to groans, shaking shoulders gave way to rolling hips. They moved so easily from mirth into lust that the two emotions comingled freely between their bodies.

John could feel Sherlock’s stiff erection next to his, and he spat into his hand to give them a bit of lubrication. Sherlock’s skin was wet and slick, a slippery surface for him to touch and see the reactions echo back to him. He kissed the tears of laughter from Sherlock’s face as Sherlock tilted his head up to look in the mirror above them. John wondered what they looked like, if the sight was erotic or ridiculous, and found he didn’t care. He was with Sherlock, and Sherlock was his.

“John – John – John -” Sherlock panted, and then there warm wet between them, Sherlock’s cock pulsing under John’s belly. John moaned at the new slickness sliding around his own cock, and thrust hard, one-two-three. Sherlock’s hands gripped at his arse, and then John was coming too, crying-laughing as Sherlock kissed his face all over.

When he could breathe again, John looked down at Sherlock. Sherlock was still half-laughing and panting and humming with pleasure and aftershocks, all at once. John was overwhelmed for a moment with a swell of love for the man, this amazing, unique man – the only one in the world.

“John?” Sherlock said. “All right?”

“It’s just…” John murmured. “Can’t believe it sometimes.”

“What?”

John smiled and stroked Sherlock’s wet hair away from his face. “You. You, laughing. Me. You and me, together. On this bed, naked. It’s a fucking miracle, Sherlock.”

Sherlock grinned back, and held John closer. “It is indeed.”

_End_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The hotel is real - it's the Pelirocco Hotel in Brighton, though the bedroom and the bathroom are two different suites in reality. 
> 
> Here's the bedroom: https://www.unusualhotelsoftheworld.com/Images/Hotels/Big/HotelPelirocco633828028108868063_big.jpg
> 
> And the 'Kraken's Lair' bathroom: http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/08/1e/87/18/bathroom-in-kraken-s.jpg
> 
> I must also admit that the thing about getting zoomed around the jacuzzi really happened to me.
> 
> Thank you all for reading!


End file.
